Steven Chu the energy secretary who gave us Solyndra
actually had his hands in a far worse project.
The Kemper project in Mississippi is the most gangrene green energy
project ever. It is Solyndra times 14 as
it cost $7.5 billion while the Solyndra debacle cost $535 million.
Back in 2010 then Secretary of Energy Chu compelled
Mississippi to go for the Kemper project.
The project is medium sized power station that used lignite coal in a
gasifier to create the combustible gases used in a turbine to generate
electricity. Of course natural gas is
the best and cheapest fuel to use in a turbine but Chu and his DOE as well as
Barack Obama wanted a project to demonstrate clean coal with carbon
capture. Sadly they picked a big time
loser in the gasifier technology that produces the combustible gases from coal
and picked an even bigger time loser in Southern Company to own and operate the
project.
Much has been written about the poor management if not
corruption in executing the project. Even
the New York Times got into lambasting the dirty secrets of the Kemper project.
What has not been written much is how Steven Chu, Obama’s
wonder-boy scientist forced the public services commission (PSC) in the
Magnolia State to approve the project, and place the cost of the project in the
rate base for Mississippi Power the electric utility owned by Southern Company.
An Article from May 2010 in the Mississippi Business Journal
shows how Dr. Chu wanted the project to
go ahead very badly.
http://msbusiness.com/2010/05/us-energy-secretary-wants-kemper-approval/
The History Project also reported on how Dr. Chu badly
wanted the project.
Both Secretary Chu and his successor Ernie Moniz were in
tight with Southern Company.
I have blogged very frequently how Kemper, Ivanpah, and
Solyndra were projects that should never have been started let alone funded by
Mr. Obama and his Department of Energy.
Kemper takes the cake for the most corrupt and Voodoo Science based
project of all. The Mississippi public services
commission is now targeting Kemper to simply run on Natural Gas.
Had Southern and the Mississippi PSC started out the project as a combined cycle
natural gas station they would have spent one fourteenth of the cost of Kemper
and the plant would have been up and running four years ago.
Dr. Chu and Dr. Moniz must be called to a congressional
hearing on their roles in the Kemper fiasco.
It makes Solyndra and even Ivanpah look like small potatoes. I will call a hearing at the international
court of thermodynamics at which Chu, Moniz, and Obama will be charged with
obstruction of thermodynamics. These
three practiced voodoo science. Kemper although massive is still a tip of a
gangrene iceberg created by Chu, Moniz and Obama.